Examining art shows that use video as media, Jerry Saltz ["Screen Savers," July 31] says of one, Song Poems, that "to see all the song poems, you'd have to stay in the gallery for three hours. Too long." What happened to the Jerry Saltz who sat through Matthew Barney 70-something times?

Sandra AbbottAlexandria, Virginia

FOX ROCKS

Thanks for Rhonda Baraka's great article on Full Force ["Flatbush Fast-Forward," August 7]. However, she left out the guys' most significant pop moment: "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)" by Samantha Fox. This put hip-pop on the map. There were approximately zero white kids riding urban beats to the top of the pops before this dynamic collaboration. Samantha's naughty rap posturing paved the way for Britney and Pink, and set the trend of having "guest rappers" on a pop record.

John HamiltonNewcastle, Pennsylvania

LIST PRICE

While Alan Hevesi's campaign may be skirting election law in this year's mayoral race by claiming exorbitant petitioning expenses as exempt ["Hankering for a Loophole," Wayne Barrett, July 31], the real problem is the petitioning process itself, not the manner in which candidates report petition expenses to the Campaign Finance Board.

I worked on a City Council campaign this summer for a candidate whose name appeared with Hevesi on some petitions. I found the petitioning processas implemented by candidates driven by paranoia about legal challenges to their signatures and engaged in ludicrous turf wars in an attempt to curry favor with residential pockets of Democrats or Republicansto be a tremendous waste of time, energy, and resources. The worst effect was the way in which the incessant and unnecessary solicitation of signatures turned off some potential voters to the political process.

New York City's term limits and four-to-one public financing are inclusive and truly democratic functions: The current Board of Elections scheme for accepting and certifying petition signatures needs to go.